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The Hidden Cost of Gold: Birth Defects and Brain Damage
CIDAHU, Indonesia — Thousands of children with crippling birth defects. Half a million people poisoned. A toxic chemical found in the food supply. Accusations of a government cover-up and police officers on the take.
This is the legacy of Indonesia's mercury trade, a business intertwined with the lucrative and illegal production of gold.
More than a hundred nations have joined a global campaign to reduce the international trade in mercury, an element so toxic there is "no known safe level of exposure," according to health experts.
But that effort has backfired in Indonesia, where illicit backyard manufacturers have sprung up to supply wildcat miners and replace mercury that was previously imported from abroad. Now, Indonesia produces so much black-market mercury that it has become a major global supplier, surreptitiously shipping thousands of tons to other parts of the world.
Much of the mercury is destined for use in gold mining in Africa and Asia, passing through hubs such as Dubai and Singapore, according to court records — and the trade has deadly consequences.
"It is a public health crisis," said Yuyun Ismawati, a co-founder of an Indonesian environmental group, Nexus3 Foundation, and a recipient of the 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize. She has called for a worldwide ban on using mercury in gold mining.
Mercury can be highly dangerous as it accumulates up the food chain, causing a wide range of disorders, including birth defects, neurological problems and even death.
Today, despite the risks, small-scale miners using mercury operate in about 80 countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas. They produce up to 25 percent of all gold sold.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @01:15PM (9 children)
False. There's no safe level because it eliminates so slow it bio-accumulates. And it does in all heterotrophic organisms, so much so that one can speak of a biomagnification along the trophic chain [canada.ca].
As for how much is known as lethal dose, have a reading about Karen Wetterhahn's death [wikipedia.org], you'll get to know that when showing in > 50μg/L in urine is already fatal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @01:35PM (7 children)
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @02:36PM (4 children)
Awww, you forgot to end the phrase in "Dixit!" while thumping your foot on the floor! Come on, try again, maybe you can get it right this time. (large grin)
(should I remind you that vaccines preservatives actually use a mercury compound, so that "there you have it! Either vaccines are unsafe or here you have a lever of mercury that is actually safe"? Nah, where'd be the fun of khallow using arguments based on reality and not the "Let's keep in mind..." ones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11 2019, @07:41PM
Never gonna get through to khallow by suggesting Latin! He ain't got the higher education for it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:05PM (2 children)
It's a mercury compound that doesn't appear much in nature and doesn't convert to a biologically active form in the human body (hence why it's usable in medicines). So it still doesn't make sense to use it as a rebuttal. And my observation is quite accurate. Dose makes the poison!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 11 2019, @11:02PM (1 child)
I'd ask for a citation if this would have been outside the grin-ning scope.
Not disagreeing, just pointing out there are poisons for which the dynamics of metabolizing plays a prime role, and the response to dosing is so varied that an average safe-for-all is hard to find or meaningless in the practical sense.
Nothing unscientific in admitting "I can't determine a useful practical** limit that is useful for your regulatory needs, the error bars are too large. Sure, a couple thousands of mercury atoms won't wreck a human weighting 80kg, but the equipment available for testing such concentrations isn't available".
** Practical limits - something you, a govt agency, could use in your everyday work to measure safe limits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @04:19AM
There are no error bars at zero mercury exposure. If the harm doesn't go to zero as your levels of mercury exposure do, then you need a new model.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11 2019, @05:34PM (1 child)
Not so much.
There are no safe levels of bullets to the brain. Let's shoot you in the head just once to demonstrate.
It's all in the name of science, and since you're a worthless piece of shit, test subject would be a good use for you.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:09PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 12 2019, @03:59AM
There are safe levels of mercury: https://www.fda.gov/food/consumers/advice-about-eating-fish [fda.gov]
Go figure.